Yard & Garden Blog

If you’re familiar with compost tea, our Worm Tea is similar, except instead of using traditional hot compost (or thermophilic compost), we use our own Living Worm Compost. Our Worm Tea is sold by the gallon to backyard gardeners for flowers, fruits, veggies, shrubbery and as a compost pile activator. It’s also used by farmers on their crops as a microbial drench and anti-fungal agent. Finally, we use it on lawns.

Before we get into how we make our Worm Tea, let’s look at different types of microbial tea and the different methods of making it. Then we can get into how we do it, and why we do it that way.

The basic recipe of compost tea consists of compost (the source of the beneficial microbes), a food source for the microbes (typically molasses) and water (distilled, rain or well water; using municipal water straight from the tap can kill the microbes because of added chemicals like chlorine). Other things can be added to give the finished product a more complex microbial population or nutrients. But those are the basics.

For a simple recipe, just throw a pound or two of compost into the bottom of a five-gallon bucket, add a half cup of black strap molasses and fill the bucket with distilled water. Let it sit in the sun for a few days, and you’ll begin seeing some film, froth and bubbles. This is evidence of your microbial population growing. You could simply add this to your plants and soil.

The problem with this method is it’s a little haphazard. First, it’s anaerobic, meaning there’s no added oxygen, so you can often end up with dangerous microbes. Second, traditional hot compost isn’t very uniform. It might not be completely “finished” (meaning it might contain pathogens or materials that aren’t necessarily beneficial), it could be too “finished” (meaning it lacks any sort of nutrients), and since different materials break down differently, every batch of hot compost is completely different from the next.

To create a safer compost tea, you could consider adding oxygen by way of an aquarium or pond aerator. Simply use the ingredients from above, but then plunk some aeration stones attached to an aerator and let it bubble for a couple days. This will give you an aerobic (active in the presence of oxygen) tea.

The problem you might face now is a product that doesn’t come out of a spray bottle cleanly. With your compost simply tossed into the bucket, you’re going to have chunks and slurry in the finished product. To fix this, use an old pair of panty hose. Or a burlap sack.

So now comes the question: What’s the difference between tea made with traditional hot compost and tea made with vermicompost (like our Living Worm Compost)? Difference #1: Vermicompost is completely “finished.” You never have to worry about semi-composted chunks of matter (sometimes containing pathogens) getting into your tea. When a worm eats the organic material and poops it out, it’s done. It gives you a more uniform result because vermicompost itself is more uniform than hot compost. Difference #2: Unlike traditional hot compost, which often has all the nutrients leach out or get destroyed by the high temperatures, vermicompost still contains trace amounts of nutrients. That’s good for your plants.

At the end of the day, tea—whether it’s made from hot compost or vermicompost—is meant to give your soil and plants a boost of microbes. Those microbes, both fungi and bacteria, help break down organic matter in your soil and serve as an anti-fungal agent. Without life in your soil, your plants will suffer.

So now on to how we make our Good Sweet Earth Worm Tea:

We use specially-made compost tea bags that we fill with our Living Worm Compost. We also add a special blend of alfalfa meal and kelp for added growth hormones and iron, respectively. To that we will add black-strap molasses. We add the water from our underground aquafer (fancy way of saying “our well”) and turn on the large pond bubbler. The whole thing is done inside our 100-gallon tank, which we can use to apply it directly to lawns, transfer into a farmer’s irrigation tank, or put into jugs and buckets for individual use.

We let the tea brew for between 24 and 72 hours (earlier in the season, when temps are still cool, it takes longer to get the microbe population up to where it needs to be; in mid- to late-summer, the microbes multiply faster in the heat).

Now when it comes to brewing our Worm Tea for use on lawns, we’ll at times add other ingredients based on the needs of a customer’s turf at any given time. Sometimes we’ll add more kelp extract, sometimes we’ll add another bit of alfalfa. If we want more a more fungal tea (not typical for lawns), we can add oats or spent distillers grains. If we want a more bacterial tea (good for lawns), fish emulsion or additional sugars (maple syrup, cane sugar, etc) can be added.

For the tea that we sell at farmers markets and on our website, our recipe is pretty standard: Living Worm Compost, aquafer/rain water, kelp, molasses, alfalfa meal. This is the recipe that we’ve found gives the best results, and it keeps things consistent for everyone that uses it.

And there it is. It sounds relatively simple, and at its core, it is. However, what we’ve been working on over the past several years is ingredient ratios, brew time and oxygen levels. And that’s where we feel like we’ve hit the sweet spot. If you’re interested in purchasing our tea (available only in West Michigan), check out our product page. Be aware: Since it does contain living organisms, you will need to use it within 8 hours of getting it.

At Good Sweet Earth, we believe healthy soil is the key to a healthier—well, everything. It’s the key to producing healthier food, keeping our watersheds clean, giving us more breathable air, and even reducing the greenhouse gasses responsible for climate change. Reducing the amount of chemicals in the soil around our homes exposes us to less carcinogens, which is healthier for our families. Healthy soil provides a home to billions and billions of lifeforms, which are threatened when soil is tainted with chemical fertilizers and herbicides. And when soil is healthy, it helps prevent erosion. Soil is life.

But what exactly does soil do?

According to the Soil Science of America, they describe the basics of soil like this:

Soil is an amazing substance. A complex mix of minerals, air, water, and countless microorganisms, soil forms at the surface of land and comes in many types. Put another way, soil is the thin, outermost layer of Earth’s crust, and like our own skin, we can’t live without soil.

Why?

Soil performs many critical functions in almost any terrestrial ecosystem, whether a farm, forest, prairie, or city.

Most of our food comes directly or indirectly from plants anchored in, and nourished by, soil.

Soils modify the atmosphere by emitting and absorbing dust and gases, including carbon dioxide, methane, and water vapor.

Soils provide habitat for soil organisms--mostly microscopic creatures that account for most of the life on Earth.

Much of the water we drink and use every day has been filtered and purified by soil.

Soils process and recycle nutrients, including carbon, so that living things can use them over and over again.

Soils serve as the foundation for the construction of roadbeds, dams, and buildings.

So this is why healthy soil is so important to us at Good Sweet Earth—it keeps our planet’s “skin” functioning as it was meant to function. Loading soil up with lab-created chemicals kills the life in it, which means things won’t grow, it means it will disappear into the wind, it means it won’t effectively filter the water we (and the creatures around us) rely on, and it means the air around us won’t be as clean and clear.

Our lawns are about as unnatural an ecosystem as you're ever going to find. And by "unnatural," I mean you're just not going to find anything similar anywhere in nature.

Tell me where you're going to find several thousand square feet of Kentucky Bluegrass, neatly contained with sharp edges, kept at a length of 2-3 inches at all times, with no other vegetation allowed to penetrate the borders. Short answer: No where! Not in the woods, not in the rain forest, not in the desert, not in the tropics, not even on the prairie. Oh sure, there are pastures, where animals graze on grass, but there's nothing quite like a lawn anywhere outside our yards. It's entirely a man-made construct.

Lawns as we know them-- closely-cut areas of grass-- first emerged in 17th century England, where they were a status symbol of the aristrocracy. The nobility could show off that they could afford land that contained neither buildings nor food. The lawn was born as a recreational area, which is what remains today. Sort of a shag carpeting for outdoor living.

But no matter how you slice it, it ain't natural. Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy having a lush green lawn as much as the next All-American homeowner, but the standards we have set for our lawns have become nearly unsustainable. Anything less than a uniform blanket of perfectly green grass blades is seen as an ugly failure.

And that's why we've become so reliant on chemicals. If it's not brilliantly green from April until November? Failure. If clover appears? Failure. If success isn't instant? Failure. But those chemical fertilizers, are actually killing your yard's plant life because those chemicals are killing the microorganisms and fungi and bugs in your soil. Those critters are vital to a healthy ecosystem. Our planet thrived because of those critters long before chemical fertilizers arrived on the scene.

Not putting those chemicals on your lawn this year would be the first step toward restoring life to your soil.

But here's the thing: Just stopping the chemicals won't necessarily give you society's version of a perfect lawn. Why? Because lawns require a lot of nutrients, and they take a lot of abuse from foot traffic and pets and mother nature (winters, droughts, etc). Those nasty chemical fertilizers are one option to give your lawn the nutrients it needs, but as I said, the chemicals actually do more damage than good. They weaken the roots, they compact the soil, they cause thatch, they cause your lawn to become chemically dependent, they pollute the environment and can make you and your pets sick.

So while getting rid of the chemicals will slowly allow those vital microorganisms to return to your soil, there probably will never be enough of them naturally-occurring in your soil to give you that "wow" lawn.

So what do we do at Good Sweet Earth to make our lawn look great, without adding chemicals to it? We apply Worm Tea as an organic microbial soil drench-- Worm Tea has billions of those beneficial microorganisms and fungi living and breathing in one teaspoonful. Imagine what regularly applying Worm Tea to your yard could do for your soil! It could increase the amount of those wonderful microorganisms a thousandfold, or more, in just one season of regular applications!

And why is that important? Because those microorganisms break down organic matter in lawn-- clippings, leaves, worm castings, compost-- and release nutrients into your soil for your lawn to soak up. Worm Tea is like delivering billions of nutrient factories straight to your lawn.

So to reiterate: those microorganisms will always exist in a chemical-free lawn, but there probably won't ever be enough to sustain a truly healthy lawn all year. To get that healthy lawn, you need healthy soil, and to get soil healthy and nutrient-rich enough to sustain a beautiful lawn, you need to infuse it with more microorganisms! Worm Tea does it.

Soils located in polar regions are unique to those found elsewhere, as they contain permafrost. Permafrost is a thick subsurface layer of soil that is frozen year round. In Antarctica, during the coldest parts of the year, the entire soil system is frozen solid. Because of this, the soil is actually very dry, like in deserts! If this is true, wouldn’t it be impossible for living creatures to survive there? Antarctica surely looks like a lifeless, barren area…Amazingly, there is life in Antarctic soils. Even in these extreme environments, scientists have been able to find soil microorganisms alive and thriving.

What scientists have found is that these tiny organisms are able to survive by living in microscopic films of water that stick to soil particles (adherence). The bond energy between water molecules and soil particles is so great that it prevents the thin layer of water from freezing, even at extremely low temperatures. Microbes live in this unfrozen water, which allows them to stay alive even during the long deep freeze of winter.

These microbes aren’t just surviving, either. During the winter, they are still consuming organic matter, “exhaling” carbon dioxide (CO2) and maintaining their populations. They are actually alive, not even hibernating!​You may wonder why scientists are willing to spend their time researching soil microbiology in such remote areas. Studying organisms in extreme and inhospitable environments like the Arctic and Antarctic allows scientists to make inferences about life on other planets. This type of research is also important for understanding how cold ecosystems function now, and how that might change in response to global climate change. Scientists are already starting to observe increased microbial activity in the polar regions. As temperatures rise, microorganisms are predicted to consume more soil organic matter, which could lead to the release of even more CO2 (a greenhouse gas) into the atmosphere.

Most of us don’t live in Antarctica, but in the northern parts of the hemisphere, it’s pretty cold in February. If you think you’ve got it bad, try to be inspired by the mighty polar microbes. They are some pretty tough organisms, and because of this, they can teach us very much.

At Good Sweet Earth, in order to more effectively treat lawns and gardens naturally and organically, we believe it’s important to fully understand soil and all of the life found within– even if that soil is found at the South Pole! That’s why we are members of organizations like the Soil Science Society of America. If you would like to put our knowledge and expertise to work in your yard this year, get in touch with us at Office@GoodSweetEarth.com. Or check out the products and services we offer.

There are millions upon millions of microbial inhabitants living in your yard’s soil, and a lion’s share of that population comprises bacteria and fungi. Those terms often illicit a negative reaction from us– they make us think of diseases and moldy food.

So what about the bacteria in our soil? Can it make us sick or cause diseases? Well, according to University of Purdue agronomy professor Ron Turco, the answer is most likely no.

“Most of the bacteria in soil can’t directly cause disease, as they don’t have the necessary biochemical abilities,” Dr. Turco recently said in a Q&A for the Soil Science Society of America. In fact, for soil to be healthy, it needs a lot of bacteria, and it needs a wide variety of bacteria (and fungi and nemotodes, etc.)

Dr Turco goes on to explain the diversity of microbial life found in healthy yards.

It’s estimated that the number of bacteria in soil is more than 100 million per gram of soil (dry weight equivalent); we also estimate there are 6,000 to 8,000 different types of bacteria per gram of soil. More surprising is the fact that the structure of the population can vary in the landscape over relatively short distances. While many bacteria are technically mobile, in soil they are more likely found attached to the soil surface, and most of their movement is controlled by the water flowing through soil pores.

Soil bacteria live in small clumps called micro-colonies that are attached to the soil surface. These micro-colonies tend to be associated with small soil aggregates, and the combination offers a form of protection from drying and predators (primarily protozoa). It also enhances the opportunity for genetic exchange.

So what does that bacteria actually contribute to the soil? Why does healthy soil need all this life? Dr Turco explains that too.

Soil microorganisms are responsible for breaking down plant residues and other carbon (C) inputs [fertilizers] and converting nitrogen (N) within the N-cycle. Because of their soil surface attachment strategy, their actions are also a fundamental part of the soil formation process.

In terms of activity and what soil bacteria are doing most of the time, we find that they are often “resting.” That’s because the large, bacterial population uses up the available nutrients quickly and then spends most of its time waiting for new food to arrive: residue inputs, fertilizers, waste materials, etc.

Ambient water and temperature conditions also have a major impact on the actions of the bacteria; they are the most negatively affected by low water availability and high temperatures. In general, the ideal conditions for plant growth are also the ideal conditions for microbial activity.

And the diversity? Why do we need lots of different kinds of bacteria?

The critical point is that the soil doesn’t contain just one type of bacteria or one set of abilities (enzymes). It’s also not full of pathogens, nor are all the bacteria in soil active all the time. Instead, soil activity changes with fluxes in moisture, temperature, and substrate input. In order to respond to an ever-changing array of inputs, the soil biology is biochemically (enzymatically) diverse in its ability to utilize foods and electron acceptors. This diversity gives soil its resilience.

It’s critical for your soil to have a variety of microbes living in it. A strong microorganism population also attracts macroorganisms– things like beetles, earthworms, centipedes, etc– which benefit your soil (and plants) as well.So if you’re looking to give your soil a microbial boost– whether for your lawn or garden– Good Sweet Earth Worm Tea is a great place to start. Our Worm Tea, applied as a microbial drench or foliar spray, can introduce a variety of beneficial microbes to your lawn or garden. We brew our Worm Tea with a blend of collected rain water and steam distilled water, organic black strap molasses, and our own all-natural vermicompost. We sell it by the gallon for gardeners, and we can also apply a Worm Tea drench directly to your lawn several times a year to give your grass a boost. If you’re interested in giving your soil an infusion of life, get in touch with us about our Worm Tea at office@GoodSweetEarth.co or call us at 616-594-0693.